Be a champion for values

April 10, 2014

What do you value? Everything we do, pursue, support, is always rooted in a value. There are two kinds of values: aspiring values and means values. For example, I value health, physical health, wellness. That would be an A category value, our aspiring value. Because I value health, I value exercise, rest, proper diet, stretching, etc. That would be an M category value, our means value. Let's do another one. Do you value financial stability? What sort of value would that be? Yes, an A category value. What are the M values? You got it! Those values are saving, frugality, generosity, planning, etc.

Understanding values is one of the first steps toward conflict resolution. I seldom sit down with two people where one person is wrong and the other one is right. Seldom. What I do find is that people have found their way into a moment of competing values. The last job I had before entering into vocational ministry in 1999, I was managing a division of a retailer's bank operations. The division had high turnover, low morale, and poor quality of work. The employees' primary complaint was that the company didn't care about their needs. Conflict.

In my first few months there, I established a dialogue with the staff about all the values represented in our "domain." There were basically three. The business had values, the customers had values, and the employees had values. Extreme conflict is typically when groups of people have become so polarized they can no longer see each other's values. It is hard for us to support the values of others when we feel like our own values are being neglected.

Successful organizations are places where people are championing one another's values. Jesus said if you want to save your life your must lose it. If you want to live, self deny. It sounds so counter-intuitive yet upon deeper contemplation, we have all experienced the reality of this in the work place. Show me a place where the employees are striving to meet the employer's values and I'll show you a place where the employer is championing the values of its people and visa versa.

Together with a great leadership team, we turned that division of the bank around in only 12 months! Our division had the lowest attrition rate, highest quality, and bench marking morale…all because we understood the critical nature values play in an environment where people are expected to work together to achieve a common goal.

When we elevate our own personal values to a place of rightness we ultimately relegate the competing values of others to wrongness. Great leaders know how to bring people's focus into a place where they can see all the competing values are legitimate, worthy. When we feel threatened that our value is going to be forgone, we posture in a stance of devaluing the other person's perspective in an effort to hold our own in a better light. Leadership doesn't allow that to happen. Granted in the end, a choice must be made but the fabric of the community is not damaged if everyone leaves the conversation understanding that one right among many was championed.

I hope your workplace, your church, your neighborhood, your home is a place where values are understood, where people listen to one another, where we are all championing the values of others as much as we hope others will value what is important to us…if not, you be the catalyst for change!